Salmagundi (periodical)

Salmagundi; or The Whim-whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. & Others, commonly referred to as Salmagundi, was a 19th-century satirical periodical created and written by American writer Washington Irving, his oldest brother William, and James Kirke Paulding. The collaborators produced twenty issues at irregular intervals between January 24, 1807 and January 15, 1808.

This article is about the 19th-century publication. For the 20th-century magazine, see Salmagundi (magazine). For the food, see salmagundi.
Salmagundi
From an 1869 reprint
AuthorWashington Irving
(with James Kirke Paulding and William Irving, Jr.)
Original titleSalmagundi; or The Whim-whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. & Others
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreSatire
PublisherDavid Longworth
(New York City)
Publication date
1807-1808
Media typePrint (Periodical)
ISBN978-0-940450-14-1 (reprint)
OCLC9412147
818/.209 19
LC ClassPS2052 1983

History

Irving and a few friends formed a group known as the "Lads of Kilkenny", described as “a loosely knit pack of literary-minded young blades out for a good time.”[1] When they weren't spending time at the Park Theatre or the Shakespeare Tavern at the corner of Nassau and Fulton Streets in Lower Manhattan, they gathered at an old family mansion on the Passaic River in Woodside, Newark, New Jersey which Gouverneur Kemble had inherited and which they called "Cockloft Hall".[2][3]

Besides Irving, the group included his brothers William, Peter, and Ebenezer; and the Kemble brothers, Gouverneur and Peter. William Irving was married to Julia Paulding, sister of his friend James Kirke Paulding. Paulding was married to the Kemble's sister Gertrude.[4] Some of them eventually organized to create the literary magazine called Salmagundi.[1]

Salmagundi lampooned New York City culture and politics in a manner much like today's Mad magazine.[5] It was in the November 11, 1807, issue that Irving first attached the name Gotham to New York City, based on the alleged stupidity of the people of Gotham, Nottinghamshire.[6]

Irving and his collaborators published the periodical using a wide variety of pseudonyms, including Will Wizard, Launcelot Langstaff, Pindar Cockloft, and Mustapha Rub-a-Dub Keli Khan.

Irving and Paulding discontinued Salmagundi in January 1808, following a disagreement with publisher David Longworth over profits.

Notes
  1. Nigro, Carmen. "So, Why Do We Call It Gotham, Anyway?", New York Public Library, January 25, 2011
  2. "Kemble, Gouverneur" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1892.
  3. "Washington Irving, Cockloft Hall, and 'Salmagundi' Papers", Historic Newark, Newark, 1916, p.25
  4. Fitch, Charles Eliot. "Paulding, James K.", Encyclopedia of Biography, Vol.1, The American Historical Society, New York, 1916
  5. Jones, 82.
  6. Burrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Oxford University Press, 1999), 417.

References
  • Irving, Washington. "Letters of Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent./Salmagundi." The Complete Works of Washington Irving, Volume 6. Edited by Bruce Granger & Martha Hartzog. (Twayne, 1977) ISBN 0-8057-8509-4
  • Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. (Arcade, 2008) ISBN 978-1-55970-836-4

Further reading
  • Hankins, Laurel V. "The Art of Retreat: Salmagundi’s Elbow-Chair Domesticity." Nineteenth Century Literature 71.4 (2017): 431-456 online.
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